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Use Your Strategic Vision to Succeed

Use Your Strategic Vision to Succeed

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” J. F. C. Fuller, Union General and Military Writer (misattributed to Sun Tzu)

When you have a long-term goal or vision, you generally develop a strategy of how you’re going to achieve your aim. This could be a plan of how you want to improve your health or get to the next level in your business or career. Without a strategy, you rely on dealing with whatever challenges crop up on a daily basis. You may have a collection of tactics that have you running in circles. When you have a strategy and tactics which move you forward, then you’ll make progress and reach your goal.

The Difference Between Strategy and Tactics

There has to be a reason for your tactics. Your vision is what you’re working towards and your strategy is your overall plan of how to achieve it. The Law of Attraction is informed by your vision and strategies. This allows the LOA to draw more opportunities and inspiration to you. Tactics are the actions you’ll take to support your strategy. Your actions stimulate the Universe with more energy to use on your behalf. Without direction from a vision or strategy, tactics are just purposeless actions, accomplishing little.

For instance, your vision, or long range goal, might be to improve your health. Your strategies would be the general actions you’d take to achieve it, such as exercise, eating habits, etc. Tactics would be the concrete steps you take to implement your strategy, such as going to a gym several times a weeks, reducing sugar and carbs, and getting better sleep.

Strategy without tactics might eventually get you to your goal, but it would be a slog. Tactics without strategy would result in inconsistency and running in circles. Both are necessary to fulfill your goal or vision.

What Is Your Vision?

  • What goal do you want to achieve? Pick one major goal and focus on it. The clearer the vision, the faster the Universe can respond.
  • What strategies do you intend to use to accomplish your goal? Don’t choose too many or dismiss unusual opportunities that the Universe puts in your path.
  • What reasonable tactics, or steps, can you take regularly? Keep them small and manageable actions. The more dedicated you are, the easier it is to be Divinely Guided.
  • Visualize yourself successfully achieving each step, and reaching your goal. This gives the Law of Attraction direction.

Follow this process, and you’ll set yourself up for success!

Affirmation: As I set my intention and take action towards my vision, the Universe provides me with everything I need. The Divine Right opportunities, people, information or resources come into my life before I require them. I am Divinely Guided and Inspired every step along the way. The Universe wants me to be successful and makes my path easy, smooth and harmonious.

As a focus mentor, hypnotherapist, and writer, Linda-Ann Stewart motivates women entrepreneurs and small business owners to focus and transform their business through deliberate actions that break through distraction and overwhelm to greater success, wellbeing and prosperity.To boost productivity and reduce overwhelm, register for her FREE guide, Design Your Best Day, at https://www.Linda-AnnStewart.com/guide.html

Transform Motion Into Action

Transform Motion Into Action

by Linda-Ann Stewart

Merry go round

Cookie was a fantastic artist, and art was her passion. She had all the tools of the trade, brushes, paint, easel, palette, canvas, etc. But she didn’t paint much. Being a wife and mother took up most of her attention. But she did make time to read artist’s magazines, go to art shows and talk with people about art.

She kept her skills sharp with her imagination. Neither the mind or body can tell the difference between the imagination and reality. When she saw something she’d like to paint, she’d describe how she’d get it onto canvas to her daughter. This satisfied her creative urge. She had hundreds of unpainted pictures in her head. The problem was that they didn’t make it to canvas so other people could appreciate them.

Doing the training and foundational work to support your goal or passion is important. You also need to have focus and know where you’re going. Without knowing how to draw, mix colors or compose the picture, an aspiring artist could start throwing paint onto a canvas and have it look nothing like they wanted. Working towards a goal, you could splash around great energy and enthusiasm, but create nothing worthwhile.

The Difference Between Motion and Action

Don’t confuse motion with action. Motion is when you do busy work that causes you to procrastinate taking action. You could spend your life in motion, like walking on a treadmill trying to get to China, but never get anywhere. It will build muscle and endurance but won’t get you where you want to go. Motion activities can be helpful, like when Cookie read her artist’s magazines. It creates a structure, supports your goal and can motivate you. But motion won’t translate into momentum.

When you have a goal, don’t get stuck in thinking, planning, organizing, and strategy. They’re motion related and all vital and necessary. But if they become all that you do, you’ll get stuck on the treadmill and never achieve your goal. They create the form for the Universe to flow into, once you act on them, by themselves, they accomplish nothing.

Visualizing your goal, and how you’d feel when you achieve it, is important. But it can also distract and derail you, as it did Cookie. It could fulfill your desire to accomplish it without actually making any headway. To remedy this, make sure you stay motivated. If you have a hard time converting from the planning stage to the action phase, remember your why you’re doing this. Why do you want this goal? What will it do for you? What will change in your life? These answers can inspire you forward.

When to Take Action

When you’ve done all you can with your planning, take some action. You may not know yet what to do, but getting moving in a direction will ground your decision. This isn’t just motion, throwing paint on the canvas. You’ve set the groundwork. Now it’s time to build some momentum. It communicates to your inner mind that you’re ready to move forward. Action also makes your goal more real and believable to you.

Maxwell Maltz, author of “Psychocybernetics,” said “Your automatic guidance system cannot guide you when you’re standing still.” You’ll be guided when you have your goal, steps and planning in place, motivation, and take action. Even if nothing happens immediately, because  you’ve dedicated yourself to your goal, you’ll be Divinely guided to contacts, opportunities or information that you need. Action also intensifies the energy of the Law of Attraction.

All of Cookie’s motion activities finally resulted in her getting into action after her daughter grew up. Eventually, she joined a group of producing artists. In that supportive environment, she began painting again. She created dozens of beautiful paintings that will be loved for years to come.

Motion activities, such as training, strategizing and planning, build the foundation and framework for you. You can use them to inspire motivation to get you into action towards your goal. And once you’re in action, you’ll gather steam and momentum. Are you ready to move towards your dreams? Then take that first step now.

Affirmation:

I accept that my talents and abilities are gifts I need to develop. They are innate and need to be shaped and molded so that they can create a beautiful life vision. Once I’ve done my foundational work, I start taking action. My efforts are Divinely guided, and everything I need for success is now provided.

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Overcome the Obstacles to Your Goal

Overcome the Obstacles to Your Goal

The path to achieving a goal is rarely smooth. There are generally obstacles that you have to overcome. Many of those barriers are self-inflicted and some aren’t. Instead of letting those blocks trip you up, use this tip to overcome them and accomplish your goal much more easily.

Transcript:

Thank you for joining me. When you set a goal, there are always going to be obstacles to it, right? I’m Linda-Ann Stewart, a vision strategist coach. I’d like to share a tip on how to overcome obstacles when you’re working towards a goal or vision. 

There are obstacles that come from within you, like procrastination or getting distracted easily. Some obstacles come from outside, like a coworker interrupting you or the cake at the party tempting you to ditch your diet.

And there are some obstacles that are a combination of inner and outer, like answering your phone even if it rings in the middle of an important meeting.

You can identify many of these obstacles ahead of time, can’t you? You’ve been in the situation before, so know your habits and tendencies. Since you’re aware of what barriers could trip you up, you can figure out how to handle them before they happen. You can plan for how you’re going to avoid them or react to them when they occur.

Here’s your tip. Make a list of those challenges, the conditions that slow you down or drag you off course. Then strategize how you could handle them in that moment. For instance, for procrastination, you could decide to take one small step, to break your immobility and get you moving. Or before a meeting, you could decide to put your phone on mute.

When you plan for how you’re going to respond to a particular situation, ahead of time, you’re being proactive. That way, you’re not having to figure out what to do in the moment, when you’re pressured. The decision has been made before hand, and you’re just executing the strategy you’ve already chosen.

To achieve your goals with confidence and ease in 4 powerful steps, watch my FREE training video, Set Your Course to Success. Register for the video and accompanying action planning guide at www.SetYourCourseGuide.com

Thank you for watching. What obstacles are you going to overcome today?

Read the accompanying article, Don’t Slow Before the Finish Line.

~ Linda-Ann Stewart 

Key Elements for Your Success

Key Elements for Your Success

Having your heart and vision aligned are vital for the success of any venture, whether personal or professional. But they is another key element that you need to be able to propel yourself forward. It’s one that is key for your success and it includes other aspects. Linda-Ann Stewart, vision strategist, will share what this element is and give you some ideas on how to cultivate it in your life.



Transcript:
Thank you for joining me. I’m Linda-Ann Stewart, a vision strategist. Do you wonder what that is? Well, I help people take their vision and focus on the strategies that will bring it into a reality. I’d like to talk about what elements you need to have in place to be successful. The first part of is that you need to align your heart with your vision. From there you create a plan, or strategies, and then focus on them.

When I talk about the heart, I mean passion and beliefs, mindset. What about you? Do you have a passion for your next step? Do you have any beliefs that contradict it? Your passion and beliefs have to be aligned with your vision, which is your intention and direction you want to go in.

Your vision is why you want to achieve your goals, and what you eventually hope to achieve. What about you? What’s your vision? When your heart and vision are supporting each other, the plan, which is the steps, strategies and tactics to take, is easy to develop. Natural progression. Heart, vision and plan form the foundation of any endeavor, whether personal or professional.

In my hypnotherapy practice, these were the first things my clients and I had to decide on before we start making changes in their lives, whether for stress reduction, stopping smoking, weight management, improving self-esteem, success programming or anything else. Without the foundation to build on, my clients would have failed to achieve their goals.

The next step was equally important. It’s what programmed them for success. It was focusing on the strategies and taking the actions that the plan dictated. Many people pay attention to details or tactics that don’t really help them in the long run. But they feel like they’re getting things done, even though they’re really just in motion. Do you ever feel that?

You can run on a treadmill, but you’ll never actually get anywhere, will you? If you’re running in place, you have to step back off that treadmill and assess if the actions you’re taking are allowing you to make progress.

When you’re not focused, you can easily become scattered, sidetracked and distracted. You don’t want to always be chasing after squirrels, do you? So focus also means to have your priorities straight. You decide what comes first then next, then next after that. You wouldn’t try to scramble eggs before you got a pan onto the stove, would you? If you did, you’d have a real mess, right? Same goes with priorities.

And you have to make sure you spend time on your priorities, and not let someone else dictate what they are. For instance, suppose you’d planned to spend the evening paying bills that were due, but a friend stopped by at the last minute and wanted you to go to a movie with them. If you agree, wouldn’t you have let their priority be more important than yours?

I know paying bills isn’t a fun job, but it was your priority and necessary to avoid late fees. If you didn’t get it done when you’d originally planned, it had to be done another time, when you might have had something else planned.

This can also happen if you don’t have any priorities at all. Then you leave the door open for someone else to decide what your priorities should be. And who wants that?

Having a focus means you also cultivate the behaviors, habits and skills you need. Maybe you need to stop procrastinating paying those bills until the last minute? Or you might want to develop the habit of scheduling social time with friends? Maybe you want to learn more about social media? All of these also take focus and attention, and help take you in the direction of your vision.

Focus is what keeps you on track and progressing. In addition to having heart, vision, and a plan, focus propels you to success. Are you lacking focus in an area? Are your priorities in order? Are you following your priorities? Do you need to establish a new habit or develop a new skill to take the next step? Take just one of these, and begin to act on it. Establish it as a priority and notice how you start making progress.

If you’d like some help in achieving your goals, apply for a complimentary Clarify Your Vision coaching consultation.

Thank you for watching. And I would love to know how you’re focusing on your goal. Take care.

Read the accompanying article, Align Your Heart with Your Vision.

~ Linda-Ann Stewart